


growing

by advaevika



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Samurai
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 20:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4975780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advaevika/pseuds/advaevika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There are countless number of times that Jayden could have apologised to Lauren over the years, countless more where he should have apologised to her. Now she’s here, in front of him for the first time in over a decade, strong and beautiful, the true head of the Shiba clan, and he can’t bring himself to do it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	growing

There are countless number of times that Jayden could have apologised to Lauren over the years, countless more where he should have apologised to her. Now she’s here, in front of him for the first time in over a decade, strong and beautiful, the true head of the Shiba clan, and he can’t bring himself to do it. He thinks it’s because he doesn’t know why exactly he’s sorry, if he’s sorry at all, but when he thinks about it it’s more that she wouldn’t know why he’s sorry. There are so many injustices that have been wrought on her, ones that are his fault, ones that aren’t, ones that are no-one’s fault, all of which he wants to let her know weren’t her own, but the words don’t come. They get stuck in his throat behind fear and tradition, struck down by their father and their mentor, so instead they stay bitter in his stomach, eating away at both of them a little more.

-

When she takes all the blame, shoulders the world and it’s fate as her mistake, Jayden wants to apologise again. There’s a part of him that wants to fold her up in his arms, hold her and let someone else take the flack for once. He doesn’t, and this time it’s not because he doesn’t know why, it’s his pride. If she can put on a brave face, keep putting one foot in front of the other and hold them all up above her, let them have no guilt, he should at least be able to manage to keep it together for one more fight, one last battle that will decide if he ever gets the opportunity again. 

-

Then she leaves. Jayden wonders if anyone’s ever apologised to her. If in her life there’s been someone who has borne the the guilt of their actions or if they’ve always been content to put it on her. She’s strong, stronger than anyone he’s ever known, and maybe everyone else is fine with letting her be strong, letting her be nothing else but a means to an end, but Jayden feels sick and alone and like he’s betrayed the one person he has always been waiting for, the only person he’s ever fully relied upon. He can’t stop thinking about her face when she left, a smile through the pain, a face braver than he could ever muster. He wonders why she didn’t want to say goodbye. 

-

It’s all over. It’s finally over. Everyone is giddy with glee, ready to regain their lives and move away from what has passed. Jayden’s never had a life, he’s always been a samurai and nothing else and he can’t help but think of Lauren, because however bad he had it, no matter how difficult it will be for him to rejoin the world and start anew, it will always be worse for her. Her life was taken from her before it had a chance to begin. She was shut away, forced out. Jayden wants to apologise again. 

This time, he makes a choice. Before, he always just let it happen, let her take it, consequences and feelings be damned, because, like everyone, else he assumed she would be fine. But he’s alone, the ones he’d come to love have gone and it feels like his lungs are being crushed in his chest. He knows he’ll never understand what it felt like for her, locked away and near forgotten, but if his loneliness is even a fraction of hers then someone should have done something about it. Someone should have shared the pain.

He leaves early, doesn’t want to have to explain to Ji where he’s going, what he’s doing, why his jaw won’t unclench or hands stop shaking. All he wants to do is find Lauren, the rest will come after. 

-

When he finally meets her it’s early afternoon, seagulls screeching and circling, heat of the sun already waning. 

Her face is a picture of concern, brows furrowed, mouth tilted to one side, but despite it all she seems happy to see him, and the knife in Jayden’s gut twists. It feels strange, to be meeting Lauren like this, on a crowded beach so far from home, but then again it’s strange to be seeing her at all, realising how quickly this version of her has replaced the young girl he used to think of her as. They’re two different people to him, if he’s honest- Lauren then, Lauren now. She was never young, though, not really, weight of legacy on her shoulders. 

There was a time when he was angry at her, jealous, almost, that she got to go away and pass the red ranger mantle to him, before he understood. Remembering that now brings back the guilt full force, and while he forces his face into a smile, for Lauren’s sake, he feels the knife twist again. 

“So I hear you saved the world,” Lauren starts, joking, despite how Jayden thinks she must feel. He knows how he felt, giving up the title of red, even after he didn’t want it, even knowing that it would come. He wants to apologise again. 

“I wish you had been there,” is all he can supply, following her to a crest of grass just above the sand, sitting with knees bent almost to their chins. 

“I did what was right.” There’s no regret in her voice, but if Jayden looks carefully there’s some in her eyes, a twinge for the team that was always his, never hers. 

“You should’ve been leading them,” he offers up, still not quite sure what to say, grasping at what little his brain is giving him. Jayden wishes he was like Emily or Mike, able to say what he means, hopes for Mia or Kevin’s careful demeanor, prays for Antonio’s ability to make everyone around him happy. Yearns to be anyone but himself. 

Lauren slips easily back into her concern and confusion, and, for a moment, Jayden wants to be her, always so easy around him, always knowing the right thing to say.“You don’t sound like yourself, Jayden.” She’s right, he doesn’t, and for the first time in his life he wants to sigh, scrub his hand over his face as he’s seen Antonio do, admit that he really has no idea what to say to her. 

“Maybe I don’t want to sound like myself.”

She looks him dead on now, tactful and intelligent, trying to discern what he’s getting at. 

“How many years was it?” Somehow she knows what he’s talking about, her expression turns faraway, dreamlike, as though it’s another life, one she didn’t have to suffer through.

“I lost count.” The knife twists.

“I don’t know when I stopped missing you, but I did. It’s wrong, isn’t it? You deserved them, they were your birthright, but instead I got them and you were alone.” Jayden’s shocked at his own eloquence, at how freely the words come once he starts saying them, but he’s been thinking them for so long, trying to find the right time or place that was never there. 

“It’s not your fault, Jayden.” She looks worried now, like the knife in his gut is really there, as though she can see it and wants to pull it out. Of course she does, of course she’s trying to protect him, even now, when there’s nothing to protect him from.

“That’s my point. It’s not my fault, it’s not our fault. They shouldn’t have done this to us- to you. We were just kids.” Jayden can feel his face breaking, or maybe it’s his heart, and Lauren shifts closer, pressing their shoulders together.

“It was our duty.” He wants to hit something. He wants to scream. Fuck duty and tradition to hell. Fuck this mess that everyone else decided to put them all in. 

“It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.” Now he does sigh, over a decade of anger and hate lost to the breeze, drowned out by the happy sounds floating up from the beach. “I’m sorry, Lauren.”

“What for?” It comes out as a laugh, but it’s nervous. He can’t remember the last time she really laughed. 

“I’m sorry you were sent away. I’m sorry I couldn’t visit. I’m sorry the sealing symbol didn’t work- it wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.” He looks at her, trying to gauge her reaction, trying to work out if he’s saying the right thing or if he’s making it worse. “You did so much for us and no-one ever thanked you. I want to thank you now, Lauren, I want to tell you how sorry we all are and how much we owe you.” Lauren smiles. Of all the things to do she smiles. 

“You’ve grown up so much,” she knocks her shoulder into his, a playful nudge, but there’s something sad in her voice, something that Jayden reciprocates. 

“You deserved better.” 

Saying it is a weight off his shoulders, a pull of the knife. It feels so good, to finally tell her, to put to rest his anguish all these years, the fear of his team finding out, the struggle of not being able to tell them, the hurt of having to keep everything from them, and from her. “We all did.” Lauren’s voice is a whisper, she speaks as though it’s a secret, one she’s kept even from herself, buried behind what they had to do to keep the world safe. A secret they all kept to survive. 

“I won’t forget you again, Lauren.” This time, when she smiles, Jayden thinks he can feel her heart break too, a shudder down her body, a small exhale that never quite reaches a sigh. 

“Do you remember that time they went out for the day and left Ji in charge? The time we convinced him to let us eat pizza and ice-cream and you ate so much that you threw up?” The knife pulls out further, Jayden nods, “I want to do that again. Except without the throwing up part.” 

So that’s what they do. They get pizza and ice-cream and sit on the ridge, watching the children play and the gulls circle, reminiscing over memories Lauren’s held on to, things Jayden barely remembers. For a few, precious hours it feels like they’re kids again, like there was never any world to save, no big, secret plan that tore them apart. 

-

“You rode that ferris wheel over twenty times! I thought we’d never go home!” They’re both smiling and laughing and Jayden feels right for the first time since Lauren left again, maybe for the first time since she was taken from him. 

The mention of home reminds Jayden why he’s here, why he came all this way. 

“You can come home now,” it sounds almost pleading, but Jayden’s had a taste of loneliness, he can’t imagine what it’s like for her, to live in it, to surround yourself with it. To thrive instead of wasting away. 

“It’s not my home, Jayden.” Lauren’s eyes are resolutely on the horizon, setting sun gilding her skin. Jayden feels lost. It had never occurred to him that she had left the Shiba house because of anything other than a sense of duty. “It hasn’t been for a long time.” It’s only now that Jayden recognises what she’s been hiding from him, why she’s different. Why she was so quick to leave. 

“You’re free,” he whispers, and he can barely believe he’s saying it himself. For him the end of the fight was just that, an ending, the moment he’d devoted his life to, everything they’d fought for finding a resolution. For Lauren, it was a beginning. No more seal, no more samurai, no more hiding from the world. 

The smile she gives him is sad and broken, her eyes shimmer but the tears aren’t sure where to go, they just stay there, lost. Jayden presses their foreheads together, takes Lauren’s hands and threads their fingers together like she did when they were kids, when Jayden tripped in the garden and broke his toe, when he cracked his head on a screen door, before they were used to pain, before they were used to being alone. 

“I’m sor-” she starts, but Jayden pulls his head back, looking her straight in the eye, face steeled.

“No, Lauren. I’m not letting you blame yourself for this one.” He keeps their hands clasped, steadies his breathing, swallows down the sting in the back of this throat and pushes back the burning in his eyes. After all, this isn’t about him, this isn’t about the way he feels or what he wants, it’s about Lauren. It’s about what she deserves and has never been given. It’s what she needs to do, what she needs to hear; what Jayden wants her to know. “You don’t have to feel guilty anymore.”


End file.
